The Pakistani media on Tuesday slammed President Pervez Musharraf [Images] for deporting former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia and cautioned that the move will have a negative fallout.

Criticising Musharraf, leading daily The News said in its editorial: "The forced exile of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia on Monday is an act of pure and utter desperation by a government that seems to be now operating very much in panic mode."

The editorial also warned that the country faced "turbulent times in the next few days and weeks".

A comment piece in the same newspaper said, "Nothing worse can possibly happen to Pakistan than what the General Musharraf-led military regime did on Monday."

In its editorial, the Islamic nation's oldest English daily Dawn said that both Musharraf and Sharif had shown an utter disregard for written agreements on the deposed premier's exile.

"If the Sharifs violated the agreement and the pledges they had made to the Saudis and the Hariris way back in 2000, the government behaved no differently at the Islamabad airport on Monday when it finally achieved what it wanted," stated the editorial.

"The political and legal implications of the episode will stay with us for quite some time. It is now for the Supreme Court to decide whether the government violated its judgment stating that every Pakistani had an inalienable right to return home and remain here," the editorial added.

Similarly, the widely-circulated Daily Times  said, "The fallout of the second exile of the Sharifs for the Musharraf government is also going to be negative,"

"Post-exile events such as further confrontation with the Supreme Court are primed to play into the hands of the rejectionists in the opposition," said the newspaper.

Describing the deportation as "a shameful episode" in Pakistan's history, the  Post newspaper agreed with its rival the Daily Times. "It is a clear violation of the Supreme Court's verdict in the Nawaz Sharif return case," stated an editorial.

The newspaper also criticised the government's move to arrest workers of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, who had planned a grand welcome for their leader.